Take the role of ARID, the artificial intelligence within a high-tech combat suit. The Fall is a unique combination of adventure-game puzzle solving and side-scroller action, all set within a dark and atmospheric story. Get ready for a disturbing journey as you explore the world of The Fall.

February 9

We're still hard at work updating The Fall with new additions. In case you didn't hear, we recently added Trading cards, a sound track, controller support upgrades, and bug fixes.

This update, we've been working with our friends over at wordsofmagic.com , who did a fantastic job completely re-doing our French translation. It is now much better at providing an authentic The-Fall-y experience for native French speakers. Additionally, several language related bug fixes are in as well, mostly to do with text formatting, but a few general gameplay bugs have also been fixed.

I wanted to take a minute to thank the community (probably you, if you're reading this) for being so awesome at sharing your opinions about the game and reporting any issues when you find them. Believe it or not, this will be the first update that will be launched publicly - as to appear in the "updated games" section (which is why I re-mentioned trading cards at the top of this update). It's caused me to look back on how far we've come. The Fall has improved leaps and bounds since it was released last May 30th, and we've got you to thank!

That's all for now, but we hope to have another interesting update coming before too long (for everyone, not just French speakers :) ). I wish I could show you guys the stuff we've got cooking for Part 2... I'm so excited about it and I know you'll love it. But..... all in good time!

December 18, 2014

The Fall 1.5 has been released. Most notably, we've added trading cards, so have fun with those! Otherwise, several little fixes and tweaks have been added. For example, Joystick mapping has been adjusted so that combat is much more natural. For a complete list of tweaks and fixes, chck out:

Reviews

“The Fall has proven that innovation is still possible in the genre”
8/10 – RestartReplay

About This Game

Experience the first story in a mind bending trilogy! The Fall was recently awarded Game of the Year for Best Story from Giant Bomb.

Take on the role of ARID, the artificial intelligence onboard a high-tech combat suit. ARID's program activates after crashing on an unknown planet. The human pilot within the combat suit is unconscious, and it is ARID's duty to protect him at all costs! As she progresses into her twisted and hostile surroundings, driven to find medical aid before it is too late, the realities of what transpired on this planet force ARID to reflect upon her own protocols. ARID's journey to save her pilot ultimately challenges the very rules that are driving her.

The Fall is a unique combination of adventure-game puzzle solving, and side-scroller action, all set within a dark and atmospheric story. Exploration will be paramount to surviving your adventure. Utilize ARID's flashlight to uncover a myriad of interactive objects. If what you uncover is hostile, switch on your laser sight and kick some metal! Get ready for a disturbing journey as you fight, explore, and think your way forward, expanding ARID's world, in spite of her protocols.

The Fall features:

A compelling story - Crafted over the course of two years, The Fall's story is a cut above standard gaming fare.

Story/Gameplay integration - Players encounter challenges that force them to think in ways congruent with the game's story.

Thick atmosphere - A very well polished visual style is complemented with The Fall's full voice cast.

Basically, you start as Sci-Fi Suit, fallen in a weird place or planet, and you have to seek medical help for your unconscious pilot.You have to go through really creative puzzles and challenges through this survival adventure.They really put a good work for this game, even the achievements are fun to accomplish. It looks at first like a casual platformer, but as you play you will feel how good and engaging mechanics this game delivers.The game is story driven, it shows you how A.I. can have a passion, feeling and willing to sacrifice for the sake of that pilot.

Great concept, excellent writing, fantastic voice acting. The problems lie with the gameplay: sticky and unresponsive controls, and the puzzles are all either too simple or too obscure. Overall, however, I enjoyed the experience and its Asimovian concepts.

An exploration-based 2D adventure game, you play the part of a robotic intelligence housed in a pilot suit. Said pilot came crashing out of space, and ploughed several dozen meters into the ground, reaching a complex cavern system. Sadly, said Fall also injured the pilot, and he is now unresponsive. Cue the takeover of the computer system, the A.R.I.D. (mark 7), which operates the suit and has to reason its way through strange situations and odd puzzles to escape the caves and save its pilot.

The game stands up well on its storytelling, especially with how the robotic intelligence responds to the situation at hand, creating a very believable, if weird, atmosphere. The controls can be a bit hard to get used to, but as always with these things, unless they’re poorly designed, once you’re used to them, that becomes a non-issue. Sound design is decent, with acceptable voice work involved, and the graphics are decent. Not too much can be said about those though, given that a huge amount of everything is just solid darkness. Still, it definitely sets the tone!

Kouen couldn’t stop playing the bloody thing, and Lasharus has since bought it, so we can safely say this one is recommended!

Nice adventure, and it is definitely worth the money. Reminds me some good-old short (yes, it is short) stories by sci-fi-theme writers (like Asimov or Lem), talking about artificial intelligence trying to evaluate themselves in some situation. Those stories were ones of my favourite. They are often in a form of a tragedy, and so this game is - creepy and sad, combined with some great black humor moments and dark surreal sci-fi background.

So I really appreciate the scenario, writings and acting, among the great decorations of abandoned location and nice ambient soundtrack. Please, support the authors, buy it and enjoy.

Yes, there are some issues common for a such type of game (adventure) like not intuitive quests. Although the solutions actually make sense (not purely random), few times during the game process I found myself clicking every interactive object and every inventory item trying to combine each one with another.

The Fall has a lot to say for a game that doesn't want to tell you what it is.

It wraps its narrative up in the pretense of AIs attempting to work within protocols to protect the humans they serve, but digging deeper it's not very hard to apply its underlying themes to areas outside the field of technology. Taken in a different light, The Fall is potentially a dialogue of the dangers presented with the necessity to work within societal rules and expectations; to be who you were created to be, and serve the ones who made you without question of their intention or if it is indeed "right".

Matters of the value of one life over another, abusing a system you've been placed in for your own needs, and whether the end really can justify the means are presented in such a way as to never be the sole focus of the story and pull you away from the task at hand, but they're there, in the background. It's entirely possible to go through The Fall and enjoy it as solely what it appears to be: an engaging sci-fi plot of a crashed pilot only barely hanging onto life, requiring his suit's AI take control and attempt to find him help. But it's the subtlety of the narrative that really stood out to me and made me pay closer attention and try to pry away at the layers concealing what the game was trying to say to me.

Ultimately it's almost always yet another question. For all of The Fall's heavy societal and possibly theological musings, it never quite arrives at the point of clarity. It made me think but at times I wondered if even it knew what the end result of all these ideas was, or if there was supposed to be one at all. And that's perfectly fine, but at the same time there's this feeling that it's possibly trying to cram too much into a short experience and perhaps becoming a little bogged down as a result.

Of course this can all be waved away with the presumption that this is but the first part of three and everything The Fall wanted to say, or the things it didn't quite get to finish elaborating on will all become clear in those ensuing games. There are parts of The Fall that were a little profound to me as I directed my character through desolate environments, flashlight barely cutting through the impenetrable atmosphere as weird shapes seemed the move in the background as sounds echoed around. They're the moments that had me entranced with my monitor; the ones that made me glad to have took the time to solve the occasionally convoluted puzzle to arrive at the moment I was currently in. They're scattered about and can sometimes seem exasperatingly out of reach, but when you get there, they're always worth the investment.

First off, this game is short. Like, beat it in 4 hours short. In addition to that, the combat isn’t great and the controls are a bit clunky, feeling like you should be using a gamepad when on KB/M and vice versa.

Great, now that we’ve got the bad stuff out of the way, let’s talk about why this game is good and totally worth your money.

Most of the puzzles are interesting and some can be difficult, but in the standard adventure game style they can be overcome as long as you have a sharp eye and creative mind. I don’t, but this aspect of the game was still enjoyable.

The two things that shine the brightest in this game are the writing and atmosphere. The portrayal of AI as a concept was very well done, and all the robots you meet were interesting and not outright good or evil, not even the antagonist. The environments are all sufficiently creepy, and everything ties together into a world that feels subtly dystopian, but not in an overt ‘everything sucks’ kind of way. I felt very immersed in the world as I played, and they managed to do that without an oversaturation of books or text logs scattered about like in many other games. Oh sure, there are some, but not all over the place. So kudos for that.

All in all, I enjoyed the experience I got, and look forward to playing any continuations of the story.10/10, better than Deus Ex: The Fall

I'm having trouble articulating my thoughts and feelings with this game, so I'll just list pros and cons.

Pros

Visually interesting

Good voice acting

Atmospheric

Conceptually intriguing

Engaging story

Cons

Frustrating controls

Buggy

Some puzzles are obtuse

the game is part of a trilogy and so is not a complete story ("to be continued")

I could write some detail about each bullet point, but I am just not up to it. I guess I don't passionately love nor hate the game enough to spend the words on it. Let it be sufficient enough for me to say that I recommend this game if you get it on sale. Plus, it looks like with the recent update that they added Steam trading cards so I will probably go back and play it some more to get my card drops.

It does explore some issues with free will and choice, and because of that, I will elaborate a little on one scene where you have to make a difficult choice. The game actually made me stop and think about the consequences of simply pressing a red button and I thought that was cool. However, it was not clear to me in the game mechanics how I would go about NOT pressing that button. Would I be able to continue on with the story and complete the game without pressing that button? So, with hesitation, I pressed the button. I guess what I am saying is that this game is not shallow; there's some depth there. As a final word, I'll say that I am most likely going to purchase the next two parts after they are released, but I'll probably wait until they go on sale first.

The graphics are beautiful and utilize the 2-D space perfectly. The sounds and atmosphere are on point as well keeping you on edge throughout the game from the first minute to the last. Highly immersive for a 2-D game, I was genuinely surprised how enthralled I became. The gameplay was very solid. Challenging puzzles that made you think carefully. But where the game really shines is its narrative.The story was absolutely brilliant. It was very philosophical and had me question things I about life thought I knew the answer to. The voice acting really brings a lot to this factor as well. This game made me feel so many emotions from fear to sadness to happiness and back again. Honestly The Fall is a gem in this aspect. The only bad thing I can say about The Fall is that it is very short. The good news though is that it is part one of three so there is something to look forward to.

I have never wrote a serious review before, but I felt it was warranted to share about this game that honestly deserves a play from anyone who loves a good story.

A good game with good ideas. Short but the price is good for the time you get playing. A movie ticket costs much more and you get less entertainment.The controles take a little time to get used to.I thought the storey was pretty cool.If you can get it cheap it's worth it.Maybe not for all gamers but if you like the "point and click" kind of game this maybe a nice change for you.If you like sifi it could also be for you.I play heaps of different games. I liked THE FALL.4/5

I finished this damn thing back in June, and I still find myself thinking about it, so I figure, sure, I'll write a review. Might as well, since that'll probably boost it's visibility on Steam.

So first of all, this game has pretty much everything going for it on an aesthetic and narrative level. While not treading on wholly new ground, it handles its story very well and manages to be effective despite being composed of very familiar elements. The same goes for the art style. Harsh shadows, sharp angles, and cool colors are all very common in indie science fiction games, but they're done as expertly as possible here and they really add to the mood. Finally, the sound design is top-notch. Some stellar voice acting sets the standard easily lived up to by the eerie ambient sounds, all mixed to perfection for evoking the sense of isolation this game wants to acheive. The only area I wouldn't praise so highly is the music. It works and provides a good backdrop, but there's nothing incredibly standout or memorable.

The real pitfalls for this game lie in, well, its gameplay. Many have already pointed out the clunky shooting mechanics, which don't kill the experience entirely, but can be rather frustratng at times. However, I would also argue that some of the puzzles tread into "jump up and down with your finger on your nose five times and rub a dead spider on the window to activate the disco ball which you then shoot down to make a hole in the floor" levels of obtuse. It's infuriating and legimtately detracts from the overall engagement. Not all of the puzzles are this way, but enough of them are to get on my nerves and I suspect quite a few other people's nerves as well.

However, I think that what this game does right honestly makes up for the qualms I have with it. It's far from perfect, but it's a fairly unique experience and one I thoroughly enjoyed having. I can only hope that future installements live up to the promise shown here.

Mostly because I liked the idea of playing an AI-controlled combat suit trying to protect its owner after landing in an unknown and hostile environment. The human in the suit unconscious. Boy did I underestimate the writing of this game.

So first, the most important thing to know is that the AI - her name is A.R.I.D. - has a set of rules to follow that make it hard for her to master her unknown surroundings at first. She's bound to three basic rules:

Do not distort reality (i.e. lie)Be obedientProtect the human who's wearing the suit

However, in order to advance in the game, she needs some features that are initially disabled in her operating system. Yet, once her human is in grave danger, the system re-evaluates the need for manual activation of features by a human and, if deemed necessary to prevent death, will enable the feature in question by itself.

For example, there's a situation that requires her to activate a crane while she's being attacked by a particular enemy. It's only then that she's able to turn on her networking ability to get out of this situation.

There are lots of puzzles you need to solve to advance that range from easy to brainteasing. I enjoyed them, save for those few that I couldn't seem to make sense of at first. But as is usually the case with those kinds of things, once you figure out the solution you wonder why you hadn't found it earlier.

The action bits - gunfights, mostly - are challenging, but features like the suit's ability to cloak as well as taking cover make them fairly easy to survive. That's not to say they're too easy, but this game is definitely more about story, skill and solving puzzles than shooting. It does fit in nicely, tho.

The story itself isn't particularly elaborate at first - all you know is you're an AI-enabled combat suit who landed on some strange unknown world in a weird kind of factory used to repair household robots that aren't working "efficiently" anymore - that is to say, they've become self-aware and are no longer safe to work around humans. The security robots and the main (robotic) caretaker of the facility deem she's faulty for reasons I'm not going to elaborate on because that's best explored yourself, forcing her to work together with the self-aware mainframe AI in control of the facility in order to get past the security robots. The ending did surprise me, however, and it's something I truly looked forward to the whole time.

I highly recommend this game. The voice acting is excellent, the graphics are nothing short of beautiful, with the animations fluid and realistic. The gameplay is very pleasing, as is the sound design and the music. And then there's the story that made it hard for me to quit playing. And for the first part of a trilogy, I was pretty happy with the ending. It didn't feel like it was only the first part, and that's always a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Get it, play it, enjoy it. If you're into Sci-Fi, adventure-like puzzles and have a couple of hours to spare, give it a go. You won't be disappointed.

The Fall.I found this game to be quite entriguing from start to end. While the general play was linear, it had some room for exploration to build background for the story. Some of the puzzles were easy to navigate and solve, while others were more challenging. There were one or two that had me go back and wander around looking around wondering "wtf, how the hell do I do this?", though overall they all gave a sense of accomplishment. I really enjoyed the story and the ideas it presented, and often had me thinking about I, Robot.

Only downsides I found were that I found it hard to play this in long sittings, and had to put time between solving the puzzles I got stuck on.

The Fall is a great game and am looking forward to potential expansions/parts in the future!8.3/10

The Fall is a 2D side-scrolling action adventure game in which you play as A.R.I.D., the artificial intelligence on-board a high-tech combat suit. After crashing on an unknown planet, A.R.I.D.’s program activates in order to save the unconscious human pilot within the suit. After a short traversal through a cave, players will find themselves in a facility owned by Domesticon, a corporation that designs and manufactures robots for domestic use. However, it is clear from the start that something went horribly wrong here as the human employees are nowhere to be found. The only sentient entity is the mainframe AI who has apparently heavily modified its personality subroutines during the long years of solitude. Also, there’s the malevolent robot known as the Caretaker watching A.R.I.D.’s every step with unclear motives.

The game starts off rather slow, but towards the end it builds up into a pretty interesting tale about artificial intelligences adapting, overcoming or bending their programming in order to complete their goals. The characters and the storytelling are thoroughly convincing thanks to some very solid writing and voice acting. It should be noted that the game ends with some remaining questions as this is only the first part of an intended trilogy. However, it still offers a satisfying resolution pertaining to this part of the story.

The Fall’s gameplay mostly revolves around exploration and puzzle solving. You will need to carefully explore the environment, pick up items of note and solve puzzles in order to proceed. Certain puzzles will have you stumped as they are a bit abstract, but most are logical. Also, all of the puzzles are woven into the story itself, there’s context behind every puzzle design. You’ll never feel like you’re solving a puzzle just for the hell of it. Outside of exploration and puzzle solving, there’s the combat. There’s not much of it here and perhaps that’s for the better as it really isn’t particularly engaging. You’ll fight against two types of robots. One type will take cover and you’ll pop a round into their head as they make themselves vulnerable and the other will just charge at you. To avoid enemy fire, you can either take cover or you can use A.R.I.D.’s camouflage protocol rendering you invisible.

The game features a very nice minimalistic dark art style clearly influenced by last year’s superb puzzler The Swapper. Combined with some good sound effects and soundtrack, The Fall manages to create a thick atmosphere. The biggest drawback of the game are the controls and the camera. You’ll get used to them after a while, but they always feel a bit cumbersome and awkward. This is especially noteworthy when aiming as the game for some reason doesn’t display the mouse cursor so it often aims in the wrong direction and the camera shifts focus to the wrong side.

Despite it being a bit rough around the edges and in need of some more polish and fine-tuning, The Fall succeeds primarily due to its compelling storytelling and mostly solid puzzle design. If you’re looking for a dark science fiction story wrapped in a sound action adventure design structure, you really can’t go wrong with The Fall.

A 2-D sidescrolling sci-fi adventure game, with a few simple shooty bits thrown in to liven things up. A thoughtful storyline with a very droll sense of humor. Fairly short game, but engaging the whole way through.

The Fall is fantastic. Only problem is that it's too short. The only thing that makes it long, are the periods where you get stumped. Someone who knows the solutions to every puzzle could plow through it in around 20 minutes.

It's a bit like a point and click adventure game, but a little better at being able to brute force your way to a solution when you are stuck (if you're paying enough attention, you can try everything you have on every noteworthy area of the room). The controls can be a bit dodgy, but have good ideas in them. I love that you have to choose whether to have your laser sight or your flashlight at any given time - you cannot be both a warrior and an explorer simultaneously.

It's not too twitchy, although there's definitely combat. Anyone can get through the fighting with a bit of practice, and a careful eye on their stats. This is a boon for the kind of game that The Fall is - primarily a medium for its puzzles and story.

The twist at the end is a bit predictable, I'd figured it out early on. But I would tend to get invested in the urgency of the moment, and forget my suspicions for awhile, only reconsidering my actions later on. In particular, the mass stasis chamber - the implications of that decision only really hit home when you think about it in the context of the big reveal. That's about as much I can say about THAT without completely giving everything away.

I am really eager for a sequel or continuation or something... I did not expect the game to end where it did, and I can't wait to see what happens next. There's so much more to the Domesticon mythology that is only hinted at, and does not get resolution or closure. I know the devs are planning to provide more, but I don't know when, or what form it will take - even DLC is possible.

This, along with Waking Mars, are both modern titles which reinvent the atmospheric and exploratory greatness of titles like Super Metroid. I've seldom been as engrossed in a game as I found myself with this one.